Edita Rusnáková

* 1957

  • A: Please, compare, how they, your parents, lived with your life in the settlement. R: Well, I lived with those gypsy children, in that settlement. We were deserted from the outside world; we didn´t care at all, what was going on in the village. We cared only about things happening in the gypsy settlement. And they didn´t live in the gypsy settlement, I mean my mother and my sisters. In Rochovce, there wasn´t in those times any gypsy settlement, so they lived together with white people.

  • For next 4 classes I went to Slavošovce, where I was rather shocked by teachers, because they were doing huge exceptions, they didn´t want any Roma. They gave us worse grades... once I was to read an article at the literature in front of whole class; we used to read in two, one white boy and me. I was almost reciting and he could hardly syllabize. I got one minus and he got one. I will remember this for my whole life...

  • R: Every time, my mother would buy me half kilo of assortments, grandpa bought me one box of chocolates and I made the tree. I was looking forward to potato salad and schnitzels. A: And how did pass that day, the Christmas Day? R: Well, we were cooking from morning and in the evening the whole family met, those godparents with those kids came to us. We had dinner at us, then we again went to them, there we ate and then watched TV. A: Did you have a TV? R: We didn´t have TV yet, so we went to watch it there.

  • R: Well, those Roma from Rejdová came, even though all Roma from Ochtiná had written a letter, that they didn´t want them in Ochtiná, that family were thugs. Nevertheless, former comrade chairman used to drink with them, so they bribed him and that´s how they got to Ochtiná. A: How old were you then? R: Around 10... No, no... I was already 15, when they came, I made a mistake... At first, the ones from settlement came to the village and then they came... Even now, local Roma from Ochtiná don´t want to band together with them. They still live so to say at the village periphery.

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    Ochtiná, 21.05.2017

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I had a nice life in the settlement

Rusnakova Edita - dobova fotka 01.jpg (historic)
Edita Rusnáková
photo: Dobové foto: archív Edity Rusnákovej; aktuálne foto: Július Rusnák

Edita Rusnáková, was born in 1957 in Rožňava district; her parents living in Rochovce village sent her as a 3-year-old to her grandparents (mother´s parents) to Ochtiná (neighbouring village), and there she stayed up to her marriage. Unlike her parents and sisters, she lived with her grandparents in a Roma settlement. She describes relationship with her parents as a cold one, they saw each other rarely, and she never felt much concern from her parents. She fondly recalls her life in the settlement and considers it as good one, but at the same time she says, that it has influenced her choice of career. Unlike her sisters, who did not live in the settlement, she finished only elementary education and in her 16, she began to work in the paper mills in Slavošovce. As 19-year-old, she married a Roma from the same settlement and as 34-year-old she widowed. She and her husband bought and renovated an old country house, where she has lived up to now. She has two children.